Unscheduled Rescuers Save 4 From House Fire

Family Members Saved From Fire – Remain Critical
NO Smoke Detectors

POSTAL LETTER CARRIER BARBARA LANGDON was filling in on a different route in Chili, New York,Thursday morning as she was delivering the mail on a street she had never worked on before. While plying her rounds, she noticed unusually-black smoke coming from a chimney and stopped to check it. Approaching the house she heard screams for help and went looking for the source. She immediately found an elderly woman hanging halfway out of a window that had thick smoke coming out of it.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle relays her story:

Langdon noticed the fire about 10:20 a.m. while delivering mail on Golden Road and began honking her horn to alert anyone in the house. She pulled her truck into a neighbor’s driveway to leave room for the firetrucks.

Barbara Langdon (Democrat and Chronicle photo)

That’s when she saw Ogg and rushed to the window. "She said she had a 4-year-old in there with her," Langdon, a grandmother herself, said Thursday afternoon.

While smoke streamed out the window above Langdon’s head, the two screamed the child’s name together. "We both started screaming," Langdon said. "I just kept screaming the baby’s name, I could hear him talking, to get him to come toward my voice."

As Ogg became weaker, Langdon pulled Ogg out of the window, which was above her head. "I don’t know how, but I got her out of the window," Langdon said. "And then she fell on the ground, I took my coat off and wrapped her up."

The Democrat and Chronicle interviewed Langdon for this video report:

Right at that time, Sheriff's Deputy Jason Ellioto and Fire Battalion Chief Chuck Kaiser arrived along with Fire Marshals Dave Sauer and Scott Miller. They all crawled into the house and quickly found a 24-yr.-old woman on the kitchen floor and dragged her out of the house.

All of them returned back inside looking for the two children, and Chief Kaiser found a 4-yr.-old boy on the first floor and handed him out a bathroom window. Deputy Ellioto detected some movement beneath some clothing on the kitchen floor and found a 7-month-old girl barely alive. He carried her out to an ambulance that had just arrived.

By then the firefighters were on the scene and full operations began.

The victims have been identified as a grandmother, her daughter and two grandchildren. All of them are hospitalized in guarded condition suffering from smoke inhalation. Also, the infant was burned.

Fire Chief Don Johnson says that they believe the fire started in the basement and smoldered for a long time. There were no smoke detectors found in the house and he believes their presence would have probably prevented the serious injuries.